New Year's Eve 1950

Dec 30, 2020, 3:13 PM

Soon after my recall to active duty in late September of 1950, I joined Team "C" of the 205th. Signal Repair Company in Pyongyang, North Korea in early November. About a week or ten days later, one of our teams that had been attached to the 24th. Division, returned from a forward position and joined those of us in Pyongyang. In addition to all of their military equipment, there was several bushels of apples. It's customary not to ask questions about how they acquired all of those apples. Just enjoy the fruits of their labors.

We ate apples and we ate apples but the supply of apples seemed to grow rather than decline. Someone suggested we make some applejack. All were in agreement but we needed a few items to carry out this task. But never underestimate the scrounging talents of a GI. We found a five gallon small neck glass jug, a stopper and plastic tubing and we were in business. Several of us got our GI knives and began to cut up the apples and push the pieces down into the jug. We got a steel rod and bent the end slightly so it would go down into the jug. We put the other end of the rod in a drill to break down the apples even more. We got some sugar from the mess tent to add to the apples. The final task was to put the stopper and tubing in place and place the end of the tube in a bottle of water to create an air lock.

Several days later we learned a vast number of Chinese were headed in our direction. We received orders to prepare to evacuate. We knew the roads were in bad shape so we needed to protect that jug of applejack. We found some boards and fashioned a crate for the jug and found some rags to provide additional cushioning. We then placed the jug on one of the trucks and charged every man who would be on that truck to guard that jug with their lives.

The Chinese were rapidly approaching our position so we left Pyongyang on Dec. 1, being among the last to leave Pyongyang. Our final destination was Pusan, arriving there on Dec. 8. Soon thereafter, two more of our teams joined us and we were working daily to get everything organized in a limited amount of space. No one even mentioned the jug of applejack.

On New Year's Eve, some one asked, "where is the jug of applejack"? One of the guys said he knew where it was and he would go and get it. When he brought the jug back to our tent that was the nastiest looking stuff one would want to see. It looked as though someone had dumped a shovel full of Georgia red clay in the jug. One of the guys said he would try it. We got some gauze out of a first aid kit nd placed it over his canteen cup. Everyone watched as he took a small sip. He took a bigger sip, smiled and said, "fellows, we have something good here". Out came the canteen cups and we proceeded to have a wonderful New Year's Eve party. Someone suggested we needed something to eat so a couple of guys went down to a nearby small Korean store. The only item they brought back was several dried squid. The dried squid smelled to "high heaven" and was as tough as shoe leather. I passed on the squid.

I don't recall if it was on New Year's Day or the following day when the three of us WW2 veterans were summoned to the orderly room. We were told to pack our gear, we were being assigned to a Combat Engineering Company at the 38th Parallel. We assumed we were selected because the three of us had an engineering degree. We were now going back to the deep freeze territory.

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